MEDIA; Those With Political Bent Avid to Make Point in Print

The business of politics and the business of publishing are once again locked in a tight embrace.

Five likely contestants for the Democratic nomination in 2004 either have released new books, have signed up to write their own books or have authorized others to work on their stories. Meanwhile, current best-seller lists show that celebrity polemicists sell well, particularly when their cable-news employers provide a built-in publicity machine.

It's not clear that there are more political books than usual on the shelves or in the pipeline, though one publisher, David Rosenthal of Simon & Schuster, one of the major publishers of political works, believes so.

''There are a lot more people who are writing political books generally,'' he said.

Another publisher, Peter Osnos, of PublicAffairs, said he thinks that the overall output of political tracts is unchanged, but that the books are promoted more than a generation ago. ''For sure, they are louder, they come more quickly, and they are distributed more widely,'' he said.

Two categories of political books are most likely to get attention these days, publishers say. One type is by people using their visibility to market their ideas (like television pundits). Then there are the books by people who hope their ideas will enhance their visibility (like prospective candidates).

The confluence of these two trends was evident last week: Just as former Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper were beginning to make the television rounds to talk about ''Joined At The Heart'' (Henry Holt), their new book about the American family, the conservative radio and cable-news host Sean Hannity was marking the 12th week that his book, ''Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty Over Liberalism'' (Regan Books/HarperCollins), was on The New York Times best-seller list. It holds the No. 14 slot on the list for Nov. 24.

Four slots ahead of Mr. Hannity's book on that list is an anti-political polemic, Michael Moore's ''Stupid White Men'' (Regan Books/HarperCollins). The book is a screed against Republicans, Democrats and corporate America by the documentary filmmaker, Michael Moore, who created his high-profile persona as a progressive, angry everyman with films like ''Roger and Me'' and the current ''Bowling for Columbine.''

Celebrity commentator-authors, whose ranks include Bill O'Reilly, the most popular program host on cable television, and CNN's James Carville and Paul Begala, once aides to former President Bill Clinton, are, Mr. Osnos said, the heirs of the columnist-authors Drew Pearson and Westbrook Pegler. Their celebrity, like that of their print predecessors, is bankable.

They are also the progenitors of the culture of argument. As Judith Regan, the president of Regan Books, said in an interview: ''I think in the case of both Michael Moore and Sean Hannity, those are books driven by strong personalities. Whether they were tackling the subject of politics or celebrity or weight loss, if you have the platform they have, the books sell.'' She added, ''These are info-tainment books.''

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Candidates' books also have a long history, with milestones like John F. Kennedy's ''Profiles in Courage,'' Barry Goldwater's ''Conscience of a Conservative'' and Jimmy Carter's ''Why Not The Best?'' But the genre gained new import and electricity two years ago with the huge success of John McCain's autobiography, ''Faith of Our Fathers.''

Mr. McCain's Republican presidential campaign and his book, written with his administrative assistant, Mark Salter, and published in September 1999, took off together, Mr. Salter said. As the fall continued, Mr. Salter said, book signings were jammed and ''people would start to show up at campaign rallies with the book to get it signed; it became iconic.''

The phenomenon has not been lost on the prospective Democratic presidential candidates in the Senate, like John Kerry of Massachusetts, whose Vietnam experience is the focus of a book that the historian Douglas Brinkley is writing for Viking, or John Edwards of North Carolina, who is working on a manuscript about his career as a trial lawyer for Simon & Schuster.

Tom Daschle, the outgoing Senate majority leader, has signed a contract with Crown Books to write about the 107th Congress. And Joseph I. Lieberman and his wife, Hadassah, are completing a book ''about being sucked into the vortex of the 2000 campaign'' said his publisher, Mr. Rosenthal of Simon & Schuster.

''There is no paucity of an audience for candidate books,'' Mr. Rosenthal added. ''The hard-core supporters of many of these people will come out and buy a book.''

With all of this, there is still room for the explanatory how-they-did-it campaign book, or so Mr. Osnos believes. He has just commissioned two Texas journalists, Lou Dubose and Jan Reid, to write a biography of President Bush's political adviser, Karl Rove, pegged to the Republican midterm electoral sweep. ''Boy Genius'' is expected to arrive in bookstores at the end of the year.